Everyone agrees that using a VPN for Kodi is one of the best ways to get access to more content around the world while still keeping yourself safe and secure. IPVanish is one of the most popular VPN’s among Kodi and Android box users.
Today, we’re going to dive into the IPVanish Android TV box app and see how to install it and get you up and running in only a few minutes.
If you don’t already have an IPVanish account, you can sign up for a trial here.
How to install the IPVanish Android TV box app
To install the app, start from the home screen of your Android TV box. I’m going to show how to do it on an Ott TV box T95Z Plus, but the principals work for almost any device. If you have an Amazon Fire TV or Fire Stick, check out this tutorial on how to install the IPVanish Fire TV app.
Go to the Google Play Store to get the IPVanish download started. To find it, just start typing IPVanish VPN and it should be the first search result that comes up.
Once you click on the icon, the app detail page comes up. Here you can see any comments or screenshots for the app. To install the IPVanish Android app, simply click Install.
Once the download starts, you’ll see a progress bar where the Install button was. The file size is very small so the download should only take a few seconds, depending on your Internet speed.
Once it finishes installing, you can open it directly from within the Google Play Store.
The app will also appear in your All Apps screen with the rest of your installed applications. In this example, you can find the icon on the top row, upper right hand corner.
Either way you open it, you’ll be required to sign in the first time you launch the IPVanish Android app. If you don’t already have an IPVanish account, you can sign up for one here.
Go ahead and type in your IPVanish login here and you’re all set.
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Take a tour of the IPVanish Android app
Now that you’re signed in and running IPVanish…let’s take a look around.
The first thing you’ll come across is the brief tutorial. Even if you’re familiar with how IPVanish works on Windows or other devices, it’s a good idea just to quickly run through it to help get you oriented with how this interface looks and acts.
In the Quick Connect Preferences, IPVanish will ask you to choose the geographic region that you want to connect to. In most cases, it’s best to think of this like the country you want to connect to.
If you’ve already skipped ahead of either the tutorial or this guide, you’ve probably got a question forming right about now. IPVanish specifically calls out “Country and City” below. Don’t worry, I’ll get into that in a minute.
IPVanish will show you what your current IP address is (think of it as your computer’s online ID number), and where in the world you’re logging in from. Depending on the number of IP addresses in your region, your IP address can pinpoint your general location (to the country or city), or get very specific (small town).
If you’ve ever wondered how advertisers can pinpoint your location and serve up targeted ads based on where you are…your IP address is how they’re doing it.
Here’s where I’ll answer that question that you probably had from earlier. If you selected the region earlier and it was “basically” the same as what country you want to connect to, then why would IPVanish ask you for the Country or City again here?
Well, it depends on how big the region is and how many servers are available in that region. For smaller regions, they may only have one or two servers available.
If you think about it, this makes sense. If you’re connecting to Lithuania, for example, how many servers do you really need to have there? One is probably plenty.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for a US or Canadian server, you’ve got a list of dozens of different cities to choose from, and each city has several severs.
Choosing the Country or City here just narrows down your list of possibilities.
The last step of the tutorial is just showing you how to connect with IPVanish on social media channels. Nothing too exciting, but I included it for the sake of completeness.
So what does this look like when you’re using the IPVanish Android app?
Take a look.
What I like about IPVanish is that it makes connecting to a VPN simple. It gives you only a few, intuitive options on the main screen (Country, City and Server). But it gives you more configuration options in the Settings page to let you tweak your connections how you like them. Finally, there’s a live scrolling graph of how much data you’re using and what your Internet speed is for both uploads and downloads.
The Verdict
The IPVanish Android app is easy to install on your Android TV box\Kodi box. It’s the best way to add a little security, peace of mind and freedom to your streaming experience. If you haven’t already, check out the promotions and sign up for an IPVanish account here.
Hi Tim,
I always look forward to your reviews. So glad you did this one for iPVanish. I was having trouble installing this VPN on my SkyStream X4 and this guide made it a breeze to install!
Thanks again!
You’re welcome, Steve. Glad you liked it!
I agree IPVanish is best but don’t get discouraged if your internet speeds doo like 60 mbps if they do you need to choose a me server or city etc. My friends all have it and they only lose 5 mbps everyone of them thats it. I had a 3 moth subscription and I kept getting 30 mbps drops so I cancelled but I’m going to purchase again and play with it or you can e even call there tech service and they will help you find the best server city etc. You should only drop 5 mbps on your download speeds. I get 178 mbps so it wouldn’t affect me at all I just need to figure out the right choice for my device. And I can’t remember how many devices are covered but you can find out with a quick search and you can find 10% discount codes all the time. Good article especially now you ISP can record and sell what you are looking at etc. I’m not working right now due to injury but I work for a PD and I look up all drugs I can and try to find out about any new drugs out etc so my ISP might find that odd but I try try to do that at work during spare time but I’m off work on a year long injury which may turn into into two years so I try to keep up with everything I can on my own ISP and don’t want them even knowing if I’m looking at the Disney channel to be honest. Privacy is going away faster and faster so you need a good VPN to protect yourself. Luckily my phone came with a app that has a VPN as well so its on at all times. Thanks again for the review. There are a couple good Vons even free if you have enough speed but I still think IPVanish is the best and more and more people are starting to use it or switching over to it. Its a great app, I just didn’t have the time to go fool with it and figure it out so I canceled it which now I see was a big mistake so I’m going to go back to them. They provide great service and customer service.
Interesting article and I have been thinking of giving a VPN a try, but some folks that i have spoke with talk about how much it slows things down… that is understood but still a concern. One nice thing about this service is the ability to have 5 units running at the same time. I have 3 Minix boxes that would be nice to hook up and other devices. I’d like to find someone running the service on a Minix U1 (those are what we have) and see what the performance is like… from what this shows is that each device is connected independently… with out having a special router. Also, Do you know if Amazon Prime Video would work with this in line? Thanks again for the article..
Dave
How do I do the ipVanish updates?